The present invention relates to railroad transportation and more particularly that which employs vehicles on wheels equipped with pneumatic tires and provided with a median guide roller and which employs track apparatuses comprising, in addition to running surfaces for the circulation of the tired wheels, a central guide groove for a roller steering the vehicles when passing through a railroad switch.
It is known that track apparatuses of conventional type are industrial products essentially manufactured from rails and that the track is conventionally laid on ballast. The rails are therefore laid and fixed and mounted on ties, most often made from wood which determine the distance between the lines of rails and the desired inclination and which transmit to the ballast the loads supported by the rails.
Special track apparatuses for the circulation of vehicles mounted on tired wheels and equipped with a guide roller for ensuring the deviation of the vehicle when changing direction, for example of the type named LAV (Light Automatic Vehicles), have been designed for conventional mounting on wooden ties, with possible interposition of soleplates or plates, a roller guide groove or device and running surfaces which are most often made from I-section steel beams, whereas in practice the laying of the concerned specific track and the apparatuses associated therewith is in no way conventional. On the contrary, this equipment is laid on a concrete slab which is cast in track apparatuses around the ties which disappear approximately to the extent of about two thirds of their height. Accordingly, such arrangement imposes a modification in the reinforcements and the ironwork of the concrete of the slab in such region.